When She Knew
by iLoVeRynMar
Summary: On the night she felt that hunger again everything changed. A look at how things developed between Katniss and Peeta after they made love for the first time. Canon. Post-Mockingjay.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: Because canon Everlark were calling my name and they are not represented enough in fic world I feel like. This will be a short multi-chapter story. Thank you to my awesome beta Court81981 for helping out with this - if you aren't reading her stories you are missing out! Find me on tumblr ~ thegirlonpeetamellark**

Katniss wakes up first.

She is immediately aware of several things.

She had a perfect, dreamless sleep.

She and Peeta are naked and wrapped around each other like vines, arms and legs intertwined.

Last night, after making love for the first time, she admitted to Peeta that she loves him.

Her heart flutters and tightens in her chest as the full impact of what it all meant hits her again. She feels a tingly, buzzing excitement shoot through her as the memory of Peeta moving inside her hits her with full force. She can't help it as her face flushes and she closes her eyes, still so unsure and inexperienced when it comes to this type of intimacy. Sharing a bed and soft kisses like she and Peeta have been doing for the past couple months is one thing, but last night was something entirely different.

She thinks back to the way that it happened, without either of them really talking about it, without either of them really expecting it.

He was comforting her from a particularly awful nightmare that had her screaming out in the middle of the night. He was stroking her back and whispering soothing words into her ear. She remembers pulling back to kiss him and just suddenly feeling like she couldn't stop_—_ that she didn't want to stop. That hunger that she had felt once before on the beach consumed her, ignited in the pit of her stomach and then reached up to squeeze at her heart before dropping down to explode between her legs. Suddenly she was pulling at him, wrapping her legs around his waist, whispering his name and pleading for something she didn't quite know how to express.

But Peeta knew...

_He was frantic and a little desperate and as he tugged her clothes off he never stopped worshipping her with his lips._

"_Katniss..." he whispered when they were both naked, when she could feel his hardness resting against her inner thigh. She could hear the pleading tone in his voice, his desire to do this, his uncertainty if this was happening too fast. _

_In the back of her mind she had a fleeting moment of worry about her skin and her body. Her scars and burns were still not fully healed, and she knew she was too slender, lacking womanly curves._

_But the way Peeta was looking at her erased any self-doubt in her mind about how she looked. She felt exposed, and it was from more than just being naked with him for the first time. She felt like he was looking at the deepest parts of her, every good and awful thing she had ever done, and accepting her for who she was. She felt like he was seeing her lying beneath him and wanting nothing more than to take her and make her his__— __to claim her, flaws and all._

"_Please..." she had whined, raising her hips up to his in offering, begging for him to fill her. She had never let herself feel this way; she had never let herself feel this kind of desire because she knew it was a dangerous road that lead to things like love that she had been determined to avoid. _

_But this was different. She would never have survived the past several months without Peeta by her side. After the war, after losing so much, she never thought she could be whole again. And yet somehow, the boy with the bread had given her hope all over again. Peeta showed her that it could be good again, she could be happy despite all the pain and loss she had endured. It was the little things; him just being by her side, baking her favorite treats, helping her with the book, looking out for her when she knew he was recovering from his own personal demons. _

_They healed together. _

_Before this, they had done nothing more than share a heated make-out session in bed, both a little too unsure, a little too raw from the wounds they were still trying to heal to try anything else._

_In that moment though she knew it was right; it was what was supposed to happen, what she wanted._

"_Please..." she repeated, dragging her hands through his curls, pulling his mouth down to connect with hers._

_He kissed her, tracing her lips with his tongue softly, sucking on her bottom lip. As he tried to position himself she noticed he was having a little bit of difficulty with his leg. He had to put all his weight on his good leg and find a comfortable position for his other one. He got a little flustered and looked up at her with a bashful smile that she returned._

_Finally, when he was situated, he used one hand to prop himself above her and reached down with his other to grab himself. She spread her legs further to try and make it easier for him as he positioned himself at her opening._

_She was glad he had found the pills Dr. Aurelius had sent her in the bathroom last week, that she had told him how he had sent her birth control in hopes of regulating her menstrual cycle after all the abuse her body had endured over the years._

_When she felt the tip of him slide past her wet folds she gasped and clung to his shoulders, burying her head in the crook of his neck. He pushed in a little farther, and her nails dug into his skin. His hand returned to her side, moving himself up above her. She could feel him plant a kiss to her neck and it relaxed her just enough that when his hips moved in one swift motion, sheathing himself inside her entirely, it was just an uncomfortable feeling of being stretched._

"_Ohhh..." he moaned, and she could feel him shudder above her, could tell how hard it was for him to stay still, to not start pumping away furiously. _

_He started a steady pace, arching his back and pulling back before pushing forward firmly, repeating that motion again and again. With every thrust the discomfort faded away and a pleasant burning sensation kindled between her legs._

_Her knees fell down to the side and she held on, mesmerized as he continued his sensual assault between her legs. She had never felt so good. Nothing had ever felt this right. She had half been expecting some hesitation or fear or worry about them doing this, but that was far from the case. Peeta being inside her felt like heaven; felt like it was always what was supposed to happen. _

"_Ka..Katniss..." he gasped as his hips started to speed up, jerking erratically and dissolving into shallow, hard thrusts._

_She held him as he fell apart, his body going tense and then as he shuddered above her. She could feel his warmth inside her, his hard length throbbing hotly. He collapsed against her and she wrapped her arms around him, feeling his heart beating wildly in his chest._

_He pulled back after a while and looked into her eyes, pushing some sweaty hair away from her face. Her own heartbeat started to pound at the sight of his blue eyes gazing into her soul. _

_He withdrew from her body and rolled to the side but never took his eyes off her. She turned to face him so their faces were inches away from each other, their sweat dampened bodies nearly pressed up against one another._

_And that's when he asked her._

_He asked her the question with the answer that she had known for much longer than she would admit, the answer that had always terrified her._

_But after what they just shared she knew. She knew the depth of her feelings towards Peeta without a doubt. She knew why he was so important to her and why she needed him to survive._

_So she told him 'Real' and leaned forward to capture his lips in a kiss._

_His lips lifted against hers, his mouth going wide, smiling at her words through their kiss._

_He pulled her against him and then dropped his hand between her legs._

_She gasped as his fingers slipped through her wetness, both at how good it felt and at the fact that Peeta's hands were __there__. Despite the fact they had just had sex, that he had just been inside her, this gesture felt startlingly new and intimate. Before tonight there were only kisses, and the sex they had just shared was a mutual exploration of an unknown act, but this was Peeta touching her where no one else had ever touched her, where she had never even touched herself, not in this way. _

_This was Peeta pleasuring her._

_The knowledge__—__combined with how good it felt when he rubbed a certain spot at the junction of her legs the right way__—__made her eyes roll to the back of her head. _

"_Peeta!" she cried, scrunching her eyes closed as he dipped a finger inside her and kept his thumb circling that spot._

_She was grasping onto his arm with a death grip at this point, her hips jerking forward in response to his hand's movements. She had no reservations, no inhibitions of what she was doing or how she was acting; it felt too good to worry about anything else._

_And then the pleasure was spiking hard and fast. "Oooh...oh!" she shouted as her body tensed up and the feeling between her legs exploded to every part of her, waves of warmth and ecstasy rolling through her as she cried out incoherently._

_The euphoria was too much. The last thing she remembered was Peeta pulling her against his body before she succumbed to exhaustion and drifted off to a peaceful sleep._

She looks at Peeta, sleeping now in the morning light peeking through the window curtain. His face is so calm and peaceful and beautiful. As she watches him, she realizes she loves everything about him: those long golden eyelashes, his pouty, pink lips, the hard line of his jaw and the slight stubble that covers it.

So she just can't help herself when she leans forward and kisses him, pressing her lips softly against his. As she pulls back, she sees his eyes flutter open, the sleepy haze fading away as he becomes more awake. Through slitted eyelids he gazes at her and offers her a lopsided grin.

"Hey," he whispers, his voice soft and raspy.

"Hi," she returns, feeling her cheeks heat. It's a strange mix of excitement and nerves and love and anticipation that overtakes her.

His arms go around her waist and he pulls her to him more firmly. She rests her head against his shoulder and tries not to focus on his morning arousal pressing into her stomach.

"Thank you..." he whispers, his lips near her ear, "...for last night."

Her stomach does a flip and she smiles against his skin.

"Do you...regret it?" he asks suddenly, his voice scared and unsure.

Her heart pangs as she pulls back to look at him. His face is tight with worry.

"Peeta, no..." she assures him, cupping his face with her hand. "I...I meant what I said last night," she explains, swallowing thickly to get the next words out. Her heart starts to thrum faster; saying the actual words_—_saying them in the light of day is a little daunting_—_but she knows he deserves to hear them. He deserves to hear them after everything he's been through. And she _wants _to say them.

"Peeta...I love you."

Before the smile can fully form on his face he's leaning forward to kiss her. He's soft and gentle, cupping her face and just tasting her. He breaks away and rests his forehead against hers and their heavy breathing mixes in the space between their lips.

He kisses her again, this time with a little more heat behind it as he rolls above her. His tongue pushes and prods and strokes her own and they just taste each other, in absolutely no rush.

"I love you too," he murmurs when his lips finally break away from her mouth and start to taste the skin of her neck, licking and sucking at the sensitive flesh.

"God, Katniss...I wasn't sure I could ever be myself again, that I'd ever be happy again. I don't know what I would've done without you."

"You saved me too," she insists, pulling at his head to reconnect his lips with her own. "If I didn't have this, if I didn't have _us, _I would have let it all destroy me." She hopes he can gather from her words the depth of what she feels for him, what she's trying to say. Despite her newfound revelations about her love for Peeta, she is still not as talented at expressing herself as he is.

He pulls away reluctantly and looks down at her with a happy sigh, running his thumb over her swollen bottom lip.

"As much as I hate to leave a bed that has you naked in it, I've got to get up and get a batch in the oven for Thom. He said there are more refugees set to arrive on the train today," Peeta explains.

She can't help but blush a little as she remembers that she is completely naked in bed with the boy she loves. Last night it was dark and she didn't think too much about Peeta seeing her, but now his eyes keep dropping to her chest and she has to fight the urge to cover herself out of habit.

"It's okay," she insists. "I'm going to go out to the woods for a little bit. I'll be back around noon and we can have lunch."

"Sounds good," he agrees, kissing her cheek as he rolls off of her and shuffles out of bed.

Her jaw drops as she takes in the sight of his perfectly sculpted backside. He moves across the room and picks up the pair of boxers he flung to the side last night in the heat of passion and puts them on.

He turns back to her to find her watching him and he shoots her a playful little grin. She swallows thickly and ducks her head, hoping to hide her blush.

She thinks this part of their relationship, this part where they've seen each other naked and have done _things _with one another and admitted their love for each other, is going to be a big change that is going to take some getting used to.

* * *

In the woods Katniss feels like a different person.

She hikes about halfway to the lake and then stops to pluck some berries and drink from a stream. Sitting on a rock at the edge of the gushing source of water, she thinks about last night.

She doesn't feel like a different person because she's had sex_—_although that is definitely something new and exciting and a little overwhelming that she's still trying to wrap her head around_—_but she feels like a different person because of what she was finally able to see so clearly and admit to herself.

She loves Peeta.

She loves Peeta so much it's a little frightening. The feeling she has towards him reminds her how her mother used to act around her father: the total infatuation, the giddy smiles for no reason at all. And she knows how that story ended, knows that this kind of love is all consuming_—_but capable of being completely incapacitating.

But at least in the current moment she's too far gone to care, too invested to try and pull back. She has fallen so deeply and completely in love with Peeta she couldn't stop now even if she tried. And she doesn't really want to because she sees now what makes all the downsides of love worth it: the absolute joy that Peeta brings to her life, the promise of a life filled with love and happiness, no matter what hardships they endure.

This knowledge, this acceptance of just how important Peeta is in her life, how much she loves and cares for him, is something that has completely changed her from the person she was before the war. All her life she has been closed off and wary of letting anyone in too close, of having to rely on anyone but herself, but now it's different. Now she knows that she needs Peeta; she needs him and wants him in her life.

The thought causes her stomach to flutter as she realizes just what that means. She closes her eyes and lets herself picture the two of them sitting in front of the fire toasting bread and then feeding it to one another. Now that she's accepted her love for him it isn't as scary of a thought as she would have expected.

But it still feels a little soon for that step, she thinks, realizing it hasn't even been a year since they both moved back to 12 after the war and started the long and slow process of healing.

There is something else, though, she decides, that they can do_—_that feels like the _right _thing for them to do at the moment.

She stands up with determination, having made up her mind, and grabs her bow. She shoots a couple of squirrels on her trek back home through the woods, a smile on her face the whole time.

* * *

She walks straight past her home and over to Peeta's, knowing that he's probably still finishing up his batch of bread for Thom. She lets herself in and leaves her hunting jacket and bow by the door, calling out to him to let him know she's there.

"Hey, I'm just finishing up," Peeta says as she comes into the kitchen to find him taking a pan out of the oven. "You get any good game today in the woods?"

She shrugs and comes to stand beside him at the counter as he starts brushing a butter mixture over the freshly baked loaves. "Just a few squirrels. Figured we could have them for dinner tonight."

"Sounds like a plan," he agrees, looking over at her and shooting her a smile.

She can't help it; she immediately grins back, biting down on her bottom lip as her face and neck flush. She looks down at her hands, suddenly hyper-aware of his body next to hers. It's strange, she realizes, that she can feel this different energy between them now. She's still herself and he's still Peeta, but now she also knows just where things can lead between them. She can feel her mind starting to drift off, thinking back to how it felt to have him moving inside her, how amazing he made her feel when he dipped his hand between her legs.

She shakes her head to clear it and tries to focus on what she was planning to say to him the whole way over here.

"Umm...so I had an idea..."

"Yeah?" he questions, transferring the last batch of loaves to a rack to cool.

"I was thinking...I thought..." She huffs in frustration, still not quite good enough at expressing herself. "I think you should move in to my house," she rushes out. "You practically live there now full time anyways, might as well make it official."

He stops what he's doing completely and turns to look at her.

She gazes down at her hands, playing with them nervously. Suddenly she realizes she didn't quite think this through. As his silence stretches on, she thinks that it was pretty presumptuous of her to just assume he would want to move into her house. Maybe he likes having his own space, somewhere he can go to get away from her for a bit. She thinks that he's probably thinking of a nice way to let her down and tell her he doesn't want to live with her when she feels him reach out and grab her hands with his own.

She lifts her head to meet his eyes and feels her breath catch. His eyes are watery and his face is heavy with vulnerability, lips quivering, eyebrows pinched together. "Are you...are you sure?" He manages to get out, his voice unsteady.

She nods her head quickly, feeling like she's on the edge of tears herself as she sees how this is affecting him. She realizes he still doesn't fully grasp the enormity of her feelings for him, that he is still having a hard time believing that she is no longer the girl who fought against admitting her love for him for so long.

He wraps his arms around her and draws her against his body, pressing a kiss to her neck that makes her stomach flip. "If you'll have me, then I can't wait," he whispers in her ear with a small chuckle, his voice sincere, clearly still in awe at the idea.

"Peeta, I want you," she assures him, pulling back to meet his eyes. "I always want you."

They share a heated look, and she can see the effect the words have on him, his eyes growing dark with passion. He cups her face in his hand and draws her lips to his, kissing her with a sense of urgency.

She moans as his tongue strokes its way into her mouth and the effect it has between her legs is palpable. She squirms a little in his arms, moving her hips as she realizes that now kissing Peeta ignites that hunger that makes her want more. Kissing Peeta now is the promise of what could be, an anticipation of something even deeper and more intense than ever before.

He pulls away first and they both struggle to catch their breath.

"I umm...I'll go drop these off with Thom and then come back here and start packing some of my stuff," he says with a nervous, excited little laugh.

"Okay, I'll help," she agrees with a smile, both of them knowing there aren't many of his things that haven't already found their way to Katniss' home.

* * *

Later on that night, they're working together to make dinner.

It didn't take more than two trips to move the rest of Peeta's belongings into her house. Currently his possessions are sitting in a corner of the living room to be dealt with later, while the pair of them move around each other in the kitchen, getting dinner ready.

They work in comfortable silence and Katniss can't help but keep glancing over at Peeta by the stove. It's an old habit really, watching him. She likes to study him secretly. She likes to examine every little aspect of him without interruption and without him knowing. Maybe a year ago, it was because she didn't want him to notice and catch on about her true feelings for him, how deep they really went. But now she realizes she doesn't want to get caught watching him because she knows exactly the power he has over her now, the fact that he can make her melt with a single look or touch.

So she watches him with brief looks and fleeting glances. She watches the way his muscles tense and flex under the plain white t-shirt he's wearing that clings to his broad shoulders. She watches how his hands work so deftly and fluidly, so in charge and strong and sure of himself. She watches as he chews on the corner of his lip, like he's deep in concentration.

When she hears her front door swing open, she snaps out of it and realizes how easy it is to get lost in him, lost in this new and exciting thing between them.

"Dinner ready?" Haymitch barks, walking across the living room towards the kitchen. He stops about halfway, his eyes going to the piles of things in the corner, his face scrunching up with confusion. "Going somewhere, sweetheart?" He questions, turning to Katniss and raising his eyebrows at her in question.

"It's my stuff," Peeta answers for her, wiping his hands off on a nearby towel. "I'm uh...moving in here...officially," he adds, scratching the back of his neck and suddenly unable to meet his mentor's eyes.

Katniss watches as Haymitch looks at Peeta, his face remaining expressionless even as he absorbs this information.

"Thought you already did..." Haymitch finally answers, shrugging his shoulders and continuing towards the dining room where he falls down into his usual seat.

Katniss lets out a breath she didn't realize she was holding and turns back to the kitchen to finish preparing dinner. She's grateful in that moment to Haymitch for not making a huge fuss about this. The last 24 hours have been a whirlwind for her and she's still trying to adjust to this huge change in her and Peeta's relationship.

She realizes as they are bringing dinner over to the table, that from an outsider's perspective it really must not seem like a big deal for Peeta to bring over the few final remaining possessions he still had at his house. To an outsider, the fact that he has been sharing her bed for the past couple of months pretty much means they've already been living with one another for a while.

Regardless, she's glad he didn't make some snarky comment or tease them over this fact. She's also glad, she realizes with a start, that he not only doesn't seem to have a problem with it, but that he approves of their living arrangements. For reasons she can't quite articulate, Haymitch's acceptance of what she does with her life means more to her than she would care to admit.

Dinner passes as usual. The three of them enjoy the food she gathered in the woods that day and make quiet conversation. Peeta and Haymitch discuss things around the district, the opening of the new factory to make medicine, the continued influx of refugees_—_some old district 12 residents and some people from 13, who without the Capitol around no longer want to keep living underground.

She keeps quiet, lost in her thoughts and the food in front of her. Sometimes she wonders when she'll get used to this_—_the peacefulness, the calm, the normal boring repetition her life has become now. She doesn't mind it one bit obviously; she's just not used to either struggling to put food on the table or fighting for her life and dealing with the games and Snow.

After a moment of silence stretches on, Peeta clears his throat and speaks up, a teasing tilt to his voice. "Hey Haymitch, guess what?" he grins, looking right at Katniss, who furrows her eyebrows in response.

"Last night Katniss told me she loooooves me," he teases, a huge, cheesy, ear-to-ear grin plastered on his face.

She shakes her head, biting down on her bottom lip to suppress the smile on her face. She rolls her eyes at him playfully even as her entire body seems to flush in response to Peeta reaching over and placing his large, warm hand over her small one.

Haymitch chuckles between bites and then finally says, "Congratulations girl, you finally managed to figure out what the rest of us knew about halfway through your first games."

Katniss looks across the table and meets his eye and Haymitch gives her the closest thing to a smile she's ever seen from him. It makes her heart jump. She sees in his eyes a million different things_—_pride, love, and happiness_—_and she takes a moment to consider it. The fact that her finally getting her act together and acknowledging her love for Peeta can invoke these emotions in him makes her really appreciate just how much he cares about her.

But of course, he's Haymitch, and the look is gone in a flash and he has to ruin the moment.

"Last_ night_ this happened, eh boy?" he asks, shooting Peeta a wry look.

She doesn't really catch on at first as Peeta looks over at him, his eyes going wide, his face turning a light shade of pink. It isn't until Peeta starts stuttering and scratching his neck and avoiding Haymitch's eyes that she realizes what he means.

And she wants to sink under the table and disappear, her mortification is so intense.

She shrinks into herself, casting her eyes downward and refusing to look up, even as she can feel her body blush from head to toe.

Haymitch clears his throat and continues, "Look I don't want to talk about it anymore than either of you so I'm going to say two things and then I'm never going to mention it again. As far as I'm concerned I live in a world where the two of you hold hands in that bed at night and that's it."

"Oh god..." Peeta groans.

She buries her face in her hands, convinced this is the most awkward and uncomfortable moment of her life and that nothing will ever top it.

"Please be safe. I know the last thing either of you need right now is another mouth to feed and person to care for. You both need to focus on yourselves and take care of each other."

At this point it doesn't really matter that he's being honest and sincere and actually giving them good advice. She keeps thinking that she will never be able to look him in the eye again. She'll never be able to even hold Peeta's hand in front of him again.

"And uhh...I know you like to sleep with the windows open boy, but umm...just please try and keep in mind that I live right next door. I don't want to hear that anymore than you want to know I've heard it."

"You finished?" Peeta asks gruffly, trying to retain his composure even though is face is still bright red.

"I'm actually still eating," Haymitch returns coolly, effectively ending the conversation by pretending it never happened.

The rest of the dinner is endured in awkward silence, all three of them unable to meet each other's eyes.

Haymitch stands up first when he's done, grabbing his bare plate and bringing it over to the sink. "Thanks for the grub," he says on his way towards the front door. "See you tomorrow," he adds before shutting the door behind him.

Peeta lets out a long breath first, his entire body deflating. "I'm sorry..." he starts to apologize. "I should have never...I wouldn't have if I had known."

"It's okay." Katniss shrugs, the embarrassment slowly starting to fade as she realizes she can just keep telling herself that that entire conversation never happened, repeating it like a mantra until she can almost believe it. "It wasn't your fault."

"I guess it's probably pretty weird for him too..." Peeta admits after a moment with a chuckle. "I mean...I definitely wouldn't want to know about him...um...doing...that..."

Katniss laughs even as she cringes at the thought. "I think the important thing is that we never have another conversation with him like that again," she declares.

"Agreed," Peeta says as they bring their plates back to the kitchen and start to clean up.

* * *

Hours later they are spread out on the floor of the living room going through their usual nightly routine of working on the book.

Again, Katniss finds herself watching him, unable to tear her eyes away from the sight of him leaning over a white piece of paper, deep in concentration as he sketches something. The sun has set and as bedtime creeps closer she can't help but wondering what's going to happen between them now. Other than their brief conversation this morning where she assured him that she doesn't regret what happened between them last night, they haven't exactly discussed anything yet.

She starts to wonder if they'll make love tonight and the thought makes her stomach flip with anticipation. She wonders if he'll initiate it, if he'll kiss her and just keep kissing her and tug her clothes off until it evolves into their bodies becoming one like the way it happened last night. She can't deny that the thought of feeling him inside her again, of shattering into a million pieces the way she did when he touched her between her legs, makes her feel more alive than she ever has before.

It's strange for her to suddenly have something in her life that is so good, that makes her feel so happy, that makes her feel more pleasure than she ever really thought was possible. But of course, she thinks, that thing would be something that she was sharing with Peeta, that he was giving her. He will always be the person that connects her to this world, that reminds her that she doesn't have to face everything alone, that she has love and passion in her life.

She bites her lip and keeps staring over at him, stuck in a trance.

She is so lost in her daydream she doesn't realize she has been looking at him for quite a while. So she starts when he looks up and locks eyes with her, a playful grin on his face.

"Can I help you?" he teases as she flushes and looks away.

"Sorry I..." she fumbles and takes a deep breath before deciding that she wants to start being more open and honest with him, telling him what she's thinking and how she feels. He deserves that much she decides; he deserves that much after waiting so long for her to admit that she loves him.

"Sometimes I like to watch you..." she confesses and cringes a little at how crazy that sounds. But she persists anyways, "I don't know...you have these really long eyelashes and sometimes you get this really deep look of concentration. You just...you're easy to look at. I could watch you all day..."

She doesn't look at him when she says any of this_—_she's not that brave yet. She fiddles with her hands instead and feels the heat creep up her neck the more she talks. When she finally manages to get it all out, she can feel her heart pounding furiously as she realizes what she's just said, the embarrassment slowly creeping up on her.

After a long while, when the silence has stretched to the point of uncomfortably long, she chances a look up at him. He's looking at her so intensely it takes her breath away. She opens her mouth to say something, but in that instant he moves across the space between them.

He captures her mouth in a kiss and crawls over her as she falls back against the floor of the living room. He's hovering above her now, kissing her like he'll never able to stop, licking his way into her mouth, claiming her as his.

"Peeta..." she pants when they break away.

And then he reaches for the button of her pants and her hips jerk forward in response.

Suddenly it feels like her skin is on fire, like every muscle and nerve in her body will snap unless he buries himself inside her this instant.

With trembling hands, she pushes his hands away and starts working on her own pants, tugging them down her hips along with her underwear. He moves to work on his own, and they only manage to get their garments down around their ankles before her knees are falling to the side and she is tugging at his hips.

She chants his name in desperation as she waits for him to fill her; she's so incredibly desperate to feel him inside her again it's overwhelming. When he slides into her they both let out low moans of relief as he starts to build a rhythm.

It feels different than last night, she thinks. She feels tight and not used to his size yet, but the discomfort isn't as noticeable. She lets her hands drift down from his back to his backside, feeling like she needs to pull him closer, help him get deeper inside her.

"Fuck!" he grunts when her hands grip his behind and the pleasure coils tighter in her stomach when she hears Peeta cuss.

"Oooh...oh..." she gasps, throwing her head back and squeezing her eyes shut as he starts to go a little harder and faster. "Peeta..." she moans before she feels his hand snake down to where they're joined.

She mewls her approval as he starts rubbing that spot at the apex of her legs again, that spot from last night. Yes, she decides, she really likes it when Peeta rubs her clit.

"Ahhh..." she gasps as his fingers make tight, hard circles in tandem with his hips thrusting faster and faster. She feels her entire body start to tense as she approaches something indescribable.

He slams into her with a hard, deep drive of his hips and she cries out so loudly she would be startled if she weren't swept away in euphoria.

The pleasure blinds her, floods her limbs with a sensation so blissful and foreign. Her heart hammers away steadily in response and she is only dimly aware of Peeta continuing to thrust inside her.

She feels it when he joins her though, his muscles going stiff beneath her hands, his body stilling as his warmth fills her. His hips rock a little erratically as he makes strained noises of pleasure above her. Then he falls against her, half his body weight off to the side so he doesn't crush her and part of his chest pressed against her breasts.

She holds him, still in a daze from her orgasm. She feels weightless and content and so, so good. She lets a smile creep across her face and brushes the hair away from his face, noticing the way she can feel his heart beating hard in his chest, the way their skin sticks together from their sweat.

Slowly, their breathing gets back to normal and they return to themselves. Peeta lifts himself up off of her a little and gives her a crooked, shy smile. He leans in to kiss her softly, letting their lips mold together.

"We could um...go upstairs to bed," he whispers when they break away and her heart lurches in response. A blush appears on his face, turning his fair skin pink as he waits for her answer. The fact that he could be shy about something at a moment like this just endears him to her more. She tries to calm her nerves and excitement over the idea of going to their room and the bed they share for _this _specific purpose.

"Okay..." she nods in response, feeling her face heat and immediately chastising herself. She moves to get up or get out from under him when he stops her.

"Wait," he says firmly, causing her to draw her eyebrows together in confusion.

And then he snakes a hand down between her legs and parts her thighs.

She gasps when she feels his fingers find her still sensitive center, seeking out her clit. "Peeta..." She chokes on his name, jerking her hips towards him and grabbing at his shoulders to hang on. She thought she might be too tender for this, but clearly her body disagrees. Her hips gyrate in a circular motion of their own accord and she feels the pleasure spiking low in her stomach a lot faster than before.

She mewls in delight, feeling every muscle and nerve in her body tighten in pleasure. When Peeta dips his head to kiss along the hollow of her throat and then trail his lips to that spot behind her ear he knows she loves, she explodes. She cries out, just as loudly as before and spasms in a fit of ecstasy.

She is trembling and delirious with pleasure and holding onto Peeta like a lifeline.

"Okay, now we can go upstairs," he murmurs in her ear, amusement clear in his voice.

* * *

Their heavy breathing is almost in sync as she pushes herself up and down on Peeta's cock. Her hands are using his shoulders to support her and his hands tightly grip her hips, helping to guide her movements.

His eyes are trained on the spot where they are joined, no doubt mesmerized by the sight of seeing himself disappear inside her again and again. She feels in control like this, setting the pace and determining how deep he gets.

In the moment all she can think about is how amazing it feels to do this with him. This is a feeling she's never known as he starts to go a little harder and faster and it's not just the sex. The pleasure is completely new, totally foreign and obviously welcomed, but it's the connection deepening between them that makes her think of this as something she has never had before. It's more than just physical, making their bodies feel good, it's a bond growing between them, a bond so deep that if she were still the same girl who couldn't admit she loved him it would terrify her.

She moves her hand from his shoulders to the sweaty ends of his blond curls. He grunts as she tugs at his hair a little and moves one arm around her waist while the other travels up to gently cup and knead her breast.

Her breath catches at the sensation, feeling like there is a direct connection between her breast and her groin. He squeezes and rubs and then pulls at her nipple. "Oooh..yea..yesss..." she breathes, her hips starting to speed up in response to his movements.

And then he leans forward and puts his mouth on her breast and she gasps, moving her hips faster and harder now. She moves in a circular motion, pressing her clit against his pubic bone and pushing at the back of his head, making sure his lips never move from her nipple.

He moves his mouth to her other breast and she throws her head back, amazed, again and still, at how good and perfect and _right _it feels to be with Peeta like _this_.

It feels good to have him inside her and to have him lick and suck at her nipples. It feels good to have him finger her clit with hard and tight circles and to orgasm until she is crying out with pleasure. But the passion and love between them is really what is sending her to new heights. As she rides him faster she feels her own release near and marvels at the fact that despite everything they've found themselves here. They have found themselves in love and are able to take pleasure from one another and get as close as two people can possibly get without her getting scared and running away.

She comes with that thought and falls against him. With a few last rough, hurried pumps he follows her and they hold each other, lost in the haze of pleasure.

She closes her eyes and realizes they only became intimate for the first time last night and in less than 24 hours they've made love multiple times and she still feels like she wants more.

But as she lifts herself off him and rolls to her side she can feel her muscles protest, leaving no doubt that she'll be sore tomorrow.

Peeta pulls her into his side as they settle themselves in bed, their sheets strewn carelessly around. "I'm never going to get tired of doing that with you," Peeta mumbles against the top of her head, his hand stroking her arm and back lazily.

She still doesn't have a way with words like Peeta so in response she just smiles and presses a kiss to his chest and threads their fingers together so she can hold his hand.

"Do you umm...are you..." Peeta trails off, suddenly tongue-tied for some reason. Katniss looks up at him curiously, waiting for him to continue.

"Is this..okay?" he finally gets out, and she frowns in confusion, still unclear at what he means. "Is this too fast for you? I feel like this past day has been kinda intense," he says with a nervous chuckle.

Her heart aches at the sudden look of worry and apprehension that she can see in his eyes. She realizes that telling him she loves him last night is only the first step towards getting Peeta to accept this new side of her—this side that _knows _and _admits _that she loves him, that isn't afraid of needing him in her life, that wants him in her life.

"It has been," she agrees finally, "but in a good way." She feels him release the breath he was holding. "And I don't know about you, but I definitely don't want to stop doing...umm this...with you anytime soon."

He laughs and moves to join their lips together in a kiss.

"I don't think I'd be able to stop anyways," he whispers against her mouth.

* * *

"Damn it!" She curses at herself out in the woods for missing her mark while trying to shoot a squirrel.

She shakes her head to try and clear it. She needs to focus. She needs to lose herself in the familiarity of the woods, she needs to make a few kills so she has something to share with the butcher and Sae when she gets into town later.

She takes a breath to compose herself and moves along, trying to keep her hunter's eye sharp.

But it's useless.

After a few moments her mind starts to wander like it has been doing so often as of late. It starts to wander to the same subject that has been filling her dreams and most of her waking hours.

Peeta.

She tries to fight it, but it's hopeless. She's in love. Since that night last week when they first became intimate and she admitted to him, as well as herself, the depths of her feelings for him nothing has been the same.

Well, a lot of things have been the same. She still hunts—or tries to—and Peeta still bakes and they still have dinner with Haymitch. They still work on the book and have nightmares and have days where the weight of their losses is almost too much to bear.

But from that moment when she was finally able to truly embrace how much she cares for Peeta, things have been...amazing. She doesn't feel like she's hiding anymore. She's not scared of what might happen if she opens her heart up to him because she knows he already has full possession of it. She truly sees now that all the joy and goodness Peeta brings to her life, his ability to help her see there will be sunshine once the storms clear is worth it and then some to risk the loss and heartache being in love can cause.

And the way they've been making love certainly doesn't hurt either.

Sometimes it makes her blush to think of the things they've shared, the way his hands have touched every part of her body, the sounds she's made, the look in his eyes when he comes. She thinks about being with him like that constantly, and since that first night hardly a day has passed without them being intimate.

What strikes her most though is how right it feels being with him like that. How it feels completely comfortable and natural. Every part of her screams in agreement when he slides inside her, feeling like this is always what they were meant to do and share.

Finally, after another botched attempt at shooting some game she decides to call it a day and head home. She's clearly too preoccupied at the moment to think of hunting.

She knows Peeta will still be in town helping Thom out so she goes straight there. She wanders around a bit, searching for him among the groups of people working on various construction sites in what used to be the town square. The new justice hall is nearly done and the new government has a supply station for refugees that are still getting back on their feet.

She finds herself at what will be Peeta's new bakery, still at the bare bones level of construction.

"Katniss!"

She turns at the familiar voice and smiles as Thom walks away from a man wearing a tool belt. "Hey Thom," she greets him with a smile, "is Peeta around? I got done with hunting early."

The smile falls from his face and her heart seizes painfully in her chest, anxiety flooding into her system.

"He uh...he went home for the day," Thom explains carefully, looking at her warily, like she's a porcelain doll that might break. "There was an accident..."

The words only just barely leave his mouth before she turns on her heels and sprints home, moving as fast as her legs can carry her.


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: My apologies this took me a while. I don't want to just force myself to write and then have it come out poorly. Thank you to the amazing Court81981 for being an amazing beta and source of support & encouragement. And thanks to all who reviewed/favorited/followed! It really motivates me to know you guys are enjoying this story. Find me on tumblr ~ thegirlonpeetamellark :)**

He's lying in bed, willing his headache away, when he hears a noise downstairs.

His eyes widen in alarm as he hears the sound of footsteps barreling up the stairs.

He looks up just as the bedroom door flies open.

"Peeta!" Katniss whimpers, rushing over to the bed and throwing her arms around him. She starts rambling about being in the woods and visiting the bakery and Thom telling her about an accident.

He just holds her and rubs her back soothingly as he lets her get it all out. He curses himself for scaring her like this and tries to clear his head so he can focus.

"What happened?" she asks when they pull away. She pushes some hair away from his face and he lifts his hand to cover her own, holding it against his skin.

"It was my fault," he begins, "I should have been wearing a hard hat. They were working on the bakery, carrying boards in from outside and one of the guys accidentally hit me on the head. It was pretty hard I guess, but I thought I was fine other than a nasty bump." He trails off and takes a deep breath before continuing. "But then I...I had two flashbacks within an hour..."

He hears her sharp intake of breath and his stomach twists painfully. He hates this. He hates having a brain that's broken, one that will never fully be healed. He hates having to tell her this and scare her.

"Were you...ok? Did you..." She can't finish the thought.

"No, I...I dug my nails into my hand," he says, opening his palms to reveal the cuts. "And then I bit down on my tongue so hard it started bleeding," he admits, shame pouring over him in waves. He hangs his head and suddenly finds it hard to even look at her.

"Peeta..." she whispers, putting her arms around him and resting her head on his shoulder. "I was so worried...I thought..."

He pulls back with a start when he realizes her eyes are glistening with unshed tears. "Hey, I'm okay, I promise," he tries to assure her, suddenly caring more about her well being than his own.

"Dr. Aurelius said that as long as you're still able to remember who you are during flashbacks it's a good sign. It means you're more in control than not." She wipes her eyes hastily and grabs onto his hands before pulling them into her lap.

He nods his head and thinks that she has a point. The one bright side of the incident today was that he was still able to fight off the shiny memories, even though they came back to back. "I still have a bit of a headache, but it's been a couple hours and I haven't had another one so I think I'm going to be fine."

Katniss nods her head and takes a shaky breath.

"You have to be fine." Her voice cracks a little, and he puts an arm around her and pulls her against him. Her body starts to shake with tears until she is sobbing in his arms.

"If something had happened to you...I wouldn't...I was so scared," she admits, her voice bordering on hysterical now. "I can't do this without you, Peeta. Now that we...that I...I love you. You can't leave me, okay? You can't."

She is a broken mess, wetting his shirt with her tears and struggling to catch her breath.

"Hey, I'm right here. I'm not going anywhere," he assures her, kissing the top of her head and rubbing her back soothingly. "I promise."

She lifts her head up to kiss him, but when their lips join it's soft and gentle and nothing like the passion-filled ones they've been sharing as of late.

"Come on, you need to lie down," she tells him when they break away. She tries to get him to lie back in bed like he had been doing, but he hesitates. "What's wrong?"

"I just..." he isn't quite sure how to express what he's feeling, the fear and anxiety that swirl and mix in his gut. "Are you sure you want to stay here with me?" He finally forces it out. "I mean...if it happens again..."

He hates himself even more when he sees the look of hurt on her face. But that look of hurt quickly morphs into something stubborn and defiant, something he is so used to seeing from her.

"It's not like this is the first flashback you've had since you've gotten back," she reasons. "I've been around you before when they've happened and it's been fine. I'm not leaving your side."

He realizes there's no use in fighting her and part of him is glad that she's not going anywhere. The selfish part of him wants her to curl up against him and be here if another one hits, wants her to hold him so he can get through it.

When they finally settle into bed, he feels the tension leave his body. His muscles start to relax and his headache even slowly starts to fade away. His breathing evens out and he has just enough wherewithal left before he falls asleep to whisper two things to the girl at his side.

"Thank you. I love you."

* * *

Sometimes they'll turn on the TV just for background noise when they work on the book.

It's nice to not see propaganda messages from the Capitol or re-runs of old Games on the screen anymore. And while Katniss will never admit it, Peeta thinks she secretly enjoys Plutarch's singing competition show—despite the fact she told the camera crew that showed up a few months ago to get her to participate to 'go to hell'.

It's a nice night—a little chilly, but they have a fire going in the living room fireplace. They're working in peaceful quiet, side by side like always. He's drawing the morphling that died protecting him in the Quell when a familiar voice gets his attention.

When he glances up at the screen his whole body tenses up, his stomach clenches, and his mouth drops open. He hasn't seen him in several months and yet he looks remarkably unchanged. The only difference is the official uniform he wears now. Peeta slowly realizes that Beetee is standing beside him, that he's talking about plans to find hidden land mines around the country that the Capitol put in place during the war.

Gale Hawthorne looks perfectly fine.

He isn't sure what he was expecting; some haunted, hollow version of the boy who used to hunt with Katniss maybe. But his appearance gives very little away. There is nothing but a calm and confident expression on his face and a determined look in his eyes. He doesn't look any worse for the wear and for a second, Peeta isn't sure whether he is happy or glad about that.

He immediately chastises himself though because of course he should be happy for Gale, that he has this new job and that he has moved on with his life. Still, a small part of him wonders if Gale ever suffered the way he and Katniss did, if he ever felt the agony of trying to live a normal life again after the war.

Finally, he looks over at Katniss who has noticed her old friend's appearance on the TV. She doesn't look particularly upset or happy. In fact, her face is a mask, hiding whatever emotion is currently growing inside her. He wishes he could reach inside her mind and hear what she is thinking, find out what kind of emotions seeing Gale brings out in her.

She looks over at Peeta and gives him a sad smile, almost as if she knows exactly what he was just thinking.

He clears his throat. "Do you ever think about—?"

"No," she answers before he can even finish, which is a good thing since he isn't quite sure what he was going to say. "That part of my life is over now."

He doesn't want to say the next words, but they slip from his mouth before he can stop them. "But if he had come back...if he does come back..."

"I'm not with you because he's not here," she says firmly, reaching out to grab his hand. It's amazing how she can read him like a book, how she seems to know him so well now. "I'm with you because I love you, because I _chose you_."

He offers her a sheepish smile and presses a kiss to the back of her hand.

"The more I think about it to be honest, the more I realize that Gale never really loved me like that. He cared about me, but he was just possessive mostly and easily jealous," she admits. His ears perk up as she starts to tell him more about her former friend than she has ever shared before.

"He told me the first time he even looked at me that way was when Darius teased me about trading with me for kisses. And then after the Victory Tour, when I wanted to run away, he was so mad that I wanted to bring you too." She shrugs and plays with the pen she had been writing with, her eyes straying back to the TV, watching the person she grew up with that has now become a total stranger. "He even admitted the main reason he went on the mission to rescue you was so I wouldn't end up just choosing him by default."

He is at once both amazed and saddened at her revelations. He's in awe that she seems to have matured so much and is able to reflect back on the past with an open mind and be honest to herself. And at the same time the idea that ultimately, Gale never truly cared for her in the way that she deserves, that he was only interested in some sort of pissing contest for her affections angers him.

She gets up and turns off the TV and then comes back to sit closer to him. She takes his hand and holds it in her lap. "Honestly, by the end, I remember the couple of kisses he and I did share were tainted. I was either feeling guilty about how much I was focused on you or had resigned myself to the fact that you were hijacked and would hate me forever." She rubs the pad of her thumb across the back of his hand soothingly. "I guess I wasn't that great of a friend to him either."

He kisses the top of her head and whispers in her ear, "You had enough things to worry about."

"And I know I'll never be able to separate...that moment...from him." She takes a deep shuddering breath and he is proud of how far she has come, how the mere mention of Prim doesn't automatically set her off anymore. "I...I don't blame him, but...it could never be the same between us again. I see the world he lives in now and I just...don't ever want to be a part of it."

He truly does feel for her that she has lost someone from her old life, someone that used to be so important to her. At the same time, though, he admires her maturity and her ability to let go and move on.

He reaches out and tips her chin up so he can connect their lips in a kiss. He means for it to be gentle and comforting, but her tongue traces his bottom lip and pushes into his mouth. He makes a low moan in the back of his throat and before he can consider it, she wraps her arms around his neck and pulls him down with her as they fall to the floor.

They lose themselves in their kisses and he can feel that familiar burning desire start to build, the sudden urgency to be inside her. He breaks away from their embrace and pushes her shirt up, revealing she's not wearing anything underneath. When his lips close around her nipple, she makes a keening noise of satisfaction and urges her hips up towards him.

"Peeta..." she moans breathlessly, rocking her hips in a circular motion, searching for his touch.

He gives it to her. He dips his hand down between her legs and rubs her over her pants. The little mewl of delight she makes resonates in his groin. He sits back on his knees and helps her pull off her top before they work together to rid her of her pants.

When she's completely naked, lying out on the floor in front of the fireplace in the home they share together, he takes a moment to drink in the sight of her. He realizes she's pulling his shirt off, but before she can move to his pants, he grabs her hands to stop her.

"What's wrong?" she asks, eyebrows pinching together in confusion.

"Nothing's wrong," he assures her with a chuckle. "I just...I want to...try something." She eyes him warily. "Just lay back...please?"

She obliges, falling back against the rug, looking up at him with wide eyes.

His eyes roam her body: her small, pert breasts, with nipples puckered and hard; her flat stomach and patchwork of scars; and the dark curls between her legs. He feels his dick twitch when he watches her bend her knees and then spread her legs for him.

He leans down to kiss her and then trails his lips down the hollow of her throat, pausing to lick and suck at the sensitive skin there. She responds by running her hands through his hair and tugging at the ends.

"You taste good..." he whispers against her skin as his lips continue their descent down her body.

She whines a little as he teases her, kissing and licking around her nipple, making her wait for it. He thinks he hears her moan 'please' and if he wasn't hard before he is throbbing with need now. He sucks on her nipple finally, tugging at it gently with his teeth.

"Yesss..." she whimpers and he feels her thrusting her hips up towards him in response.

He pulls away and gives her other breast the same treatment. When he has her writhing with need, he moves his lips down her stomach, continuing his downward path until his head is in between her legs.

She sits up quickly on her elbows, looking at him in alarm. "What are you doing?"

"Trust me?" he asks hopefully and though she looks at him warily, she lays back down, keeping her eyes on him.

He parts her legs again carefully, pressing soft kisses to her inner thighs. "Just relax. I want to try this. You'll like it...I promise."

He whispers these words against her skin and he can feel her resistance and discomfort with his head being so close to her most private area slowly start to fade away. Finally, before she can stop him with her doubts or shyness, he wraps one arm around her leg and use his other to hold her hips down.

He licks the length of her folds, tasting how wet she is for him, using the pad of his tongue to run across the hood of her clit teasingly.

She cries out, her hands immediately going to his hair to pull him closer, and he smiles in triumph. She whimpers his name and tosses her head side to side as he continues, dipping his tongue inside her, tasting every part of her, letting her feel him.

For one brief moment his eyes flicker to the TV that had been on just moments earlier and part of him wishes that it still was on. The possessive, bitter part of him wishes he could look up at Gale Hawthorne while he has his mouth on Katniss' pussy, making her scream his name. He almost wishes Gale could know just how close they've become since the war, how they've grown together and healed and fallen in love and become intimate.

But as quickly as that thought comes it's gone. He's not Gale. He's not with Katniss just to feel like he beat someone. He's with her because he loves her.

"Oooh...oh!" His heart starts to beat wildly at her enthusiastic response. She has never been quite this vocal before with her pleasure. The thought thrills him and spurs him on.

"Peeta...I can't!" She starts to whine even as her hips begin to thrust against his face in response to his mouth. He licks at her clit, using his tongue to flick and massage the little bundle of nerves. Her moans are becoming increasingly louder and more out of control.

"Don't stop..." she begs through the haze of pleasure.

He closes his mouth around her clit, sucking it into his mouth, punishing it with his tongue. It's then that he feels her fall apart, her entire body going rigid and then spasming uncontrollably.

She's still trembling with pleasure when he moves up to lie beside her and pull her into his arms. He kisses her forehead softly and holds her as she slowly comes back down to earth.

"Peeta...that was..." she whispers, unable to finish the thought.

"Told you that you would like it," he mumbles and she blushes and tries to hide her grin.

"Looks like you liked it too," she finally answers, her hand traveling down to the very obvious bulge in his pants. She rubs him over the fabric of his pants and a tortured groan escapes his lips.

He sits up and leans against the bottom of the couch as they work together to tug his pants off. When he's finally naked he expects her to climb on his lap and sink down on top of him, but instead she leans forward to kiss him and then sits back on her heels next to him.

"I kinda want to return the favor..." she says with a bashful smile, biting down on her bottom lip and tucking her hair behind her ear.

He can only mumble incoherently as his mouth drops open in shock and she turns her attention to his hard and aching cock.

"Do I just...?" She trails off as she looks up at him, but she must see that she's not going to get anything remotely helpful from him in the moment and she returns her attention to the task at hand. Finally she leans down and takes him in her hand before licking his tip with her tongue.

"Oh...fuck!" He exhales, reaching up to rest his hand on her head.

Encouraged, she leans down and takes him further in her mouth, wrapping her lips around him completely. He grunts and takes deep breaths and tries not to thrust himself down her throat. He feels his balls tighten when he looks down and watches as she bobs her head up and down the length of his dick. A thousand wet dreams he had growing up about this exact moment flicker in the back of his mind and he feels almost delirious with pleasure.

She's sucking what she can fit in her mouth and using her hand on the base of his cock. He's about to say something about covering her teeth when she starts using her tongue enthusiastically and the words die in his throat.

"Ka...Katniss..." he whimpers, pushing her hair away from her face.

She releases him from her mouth and starts to lick him with long, generous strokes of her tongue. When she reaches down to cup his balls and takes him in her mouth again, he knows he can't stand much more.

He waits until the last second and then grabs her shoulder to tug her away. Before she can even question him, he grips himself tightly in his hand and comes in long spurts on his stomach.

She curls into his side as he rides out the pleasure, pushing his sweat-dampened hair off his forehead. "I would have..." she starts to say.

"It's okay," he assures her, "that was...amazing."

She leans forward to kiss him and their lips push and melt against each other, tasting one another gently after the rush of euphoria they both just experienced.

When she pulls away she's grinning but trying to hide it. "Just thinking about what you did makes me blush, but I...I really, really liked it."

He laughs and tightens his hold on her. "Well good. I enjoyed doing it. And uh...you weren't too bad at that yourself."

She giggles and buries her head in his shoulder. "You're bringing out this wanton side in me, Mellark."

He laughs but doesn't say anything. The truth is he feels like something has been changing inside him too ever since they started making love. It's hard to explain it, but he feels a confidence in what they have growing and a desire to do and try everything he possibly can with her. He's just glad she seems to be willing to go along.

"I love you," he finally whispers after a while, as their breathing has started to slow down. They're both just about to drift off, naked, wrapped in each other's arms and in the afterglow of the pleasure they just shared. "And I love making love to you."

* * *

Picking strawberries by a stream out in the woods, a memory of the last time he and Katniss had been doing this exact same thing resurfaces. He thinks back to that day during their first games when he stupidly picked the nightlock while she hunted. He remembers how confused he was by her anger when she found him.

It wasn't until much later when he really started to know and understand Katniss that he could explain her reaction. He remembers realizing with a jolt that that was one part of the games where Katniss wasn't faking anything. He realized that Katniss is stubborn and fiercely protective of the people she loves and maybe she didn't know it herself at the time, but by that point in their first games she was already starting to care about him.

Now their circumstances couldn't be more different from that day so long ago.

He took off early from the bakery and decided to join Katniss in the woods.

They hiked for a few hours and then stopped to have lunch. Katniss decided she wanted to try and teach him how to shoot a bow and arrow. He thought she was kidding at first until she moved to stand behind him to show him how to hold it properly.

To his surprise, he wasn't horrible, although it was a bit of a challenge to try and focus on the weapon in his hands when Katniss was pressed so tightly against his back, wrapping her arms around his to show him how to shoot.

He certainly doesn't see himself hunting anytime in the near future, but by the end of their lesson he can hit his mark on a tree from 15 yards away more often than not.

"Alright, I'm going to go hunt," she had told him afterwards, kissing him softly. "Pick some strawberries and stay out of trouble," she added, nodding her head at the bushes by the stream.

He feels himself smiling when he remembers the sight of her walking away, those tight hunting pants she always wears showing off her perfectly shaped behind. And like so often as of late he feels the blood rushing to his groin at just the thought of her, just the image of her perfect body and what he can do to it—what he has done to it.

He shakes his head to clear it and brings his handful of strawberries back over towards the collection he has already started.

From a distance he hears rustling in the woods and his heart clenches in fear when he realizes it's not Katniss. It can't be Katniss because she doesn't make a sound when she moves; she has a hunter's grace and more often than not she sneaks up on him.

He looks around and spots it. A wolf...or maybe it's a wild dog. Whatever it is, it is baring its teeth and snarling at him from about 20 yards away. He glances around, trying to figure out his best option. He can't climb a tree with his bad leg and he sure as hell can't outrun it. It's also about half his size and he isn't feeling too confident in his ability to fend it off based on the rabid look in its eyes.

He tries to stay as still as possible, not make any sudden moves to upset it. It's pointless though because the dog just starts growling louder, digging its paws in the dirt, preparing to charge.

When the dog attacks, he makes a feeble attempt to get away, but he isn't more than a few feet away when he can feel it closing in on him. He turns around at the last second, deciding he'd rather take it on face to face than get dragged down from behind.

Just as it decides to pounce, when it is in mid-air and ready to sink its teeth into him, it makes a yelp of pain and falls to the ground, an arrow pierced right through its neck as it goes completely still.

He looks around, his heart beating furiously as he realizes he just came within an inch of getting mauled to death, and he sees Katniss holding her bow, looking stricken. She runs towards him and throws her arms around him.

"Are you okay?" she asks, pulling back to cup his face in her hands.

"Yeah I...I'm fine," he replies a little shakily, still trying to calm himself down.

"Oh god, I was so scared," she starts to ramble, "my hands were shaking and I was so scared I was going to miss and you would have gotten hurt and..."

She takes a deep breath to steady herself and throws her arms around him again, burying her head in the crook of his neck.

"Hey, I'm alright," he assures her, rubbing her back up and down soothingly as he feels her trembling, still quite upset. "You saved me."

She smiles against his skin. "You've saved me plenty of times," she whispers softly.

They decide to call it a day after that. They start the hike back home and Peeta can't help noticing that Katniss is being way more affectionate than usual. She holds his hand the whole way back, leaning into him and pulling him into a long hug when they finally get home.

Together they start preparing dinner as usual, but he senses that something is still a little off. She is constantly touching him as they move around the small space of the kitchen together and when he catches her staring at him as he cuts up the bread for dinner, she doesn't blush and look away like she's been caught, she just gives him a small, sad smile.

"Hey, what's wrong?" he asks closing the space between them.

His arms wrap around her waist and her hands come up tangle in his blond curls. They share a sweet, soft kiss before she finally shrugs and responds, "I don't know, today just really scared me. I keep thinking about what if something had happened to you, what if you had gotten really hurt."

He feels his heart respond with a pang at her open admission of fear and vulnerability and love. He isn't sure if he'll ever get used to this side of Katniss that doesn't try and hide from her feelings, this side that is so sure and confident about how she feels about him.

"But I'm okay," he reminds her gently, pressing her body even tighter against his own, "because you were there to protect me."

"That's what you and I do," she tells him, her grey eyes locked on his blue ones, "protect each other."

The words send him back to another place and time. He remembers when she first spoke them to him, how it had reached deep into something inside him and pulled on the part of him that he thought had been lost forever at the hands of the Capitol, the part that wasn't hijacked, the part that still loved her.

Their lips crash together moments later and their kisses evolve into something hot and needy. Their hands start to roam each other's bodies and she pulls him towards the living room.

She pushes him down on the couch and straddles him, the soft cotton dress she changed into when they got home riding up her tan legs. She starts rocking her hips against him and he can feel his cock respond to her eager movements.

His hands drift down to cup her behind as he guides her gyrations, pushing into the warmth between her legs. He can already feel that the thin material of her underwear is soaked from her arousal.

Together they clumsily manage to undo the button and zipper of his pants and free his aching hard on. He sucks greedily at the exposed skin of her chest and neck, loving the way she tastes, the way she moans in pleasure and pants into his ear and gets dripping wet—all for him.

"Peeta.." she whines, hands digging into his shoulders, ready for him.

"Come here," he grunts, reaching down to grip himself, waiting to feel her walls all around him.

Her eyes go to his cock in his hand and widen just a bit before she gets up on her knees and moves to hover over him. He feels his dick twitch as he watches her reach under her dress and pull her panties to the side, not bothering to take them off. Then she sinks down on him and they both groan at the ecstasy of being joined like this.

"Oh god..." she purrs, burying her head against his shoulder and tangling her hands in his hair. She moves her hips in circular motions and he groans at the feel of her velvety walls surrounding him.

"Fuck you're so tight," he says through gritted teeth, hands on her hips guiding her movements.

His head drops back in ecstasy as she starts moving up and down on his cock, riding him harder as they work together to find their release. He loves watching her like this, her breathing heavy and her eyes closed in pleasure, using his body to find her bliss.

He feels his balls tightening as she starts moving faster, slamming down on him with furious movements of her hips. He reaches between her legs and uses his thumb to rub her clit, pressing down harder and making tight circles as she shouts her approval.

She cries his name and clenches around him, her orgasm hitting her just as he explodes inside her. They ride out the pleasure together, clinging to each other breathless and satisfied. She presses kisses along the line of his jaw before joining their lips together.

"I love you," she whispers and he closes his eyes. He will never not feel that thrill in his chest at hearing those words coming from her. He will never not feel that tugging on his heart that reminds him he has loved Katniss Everdeen for as long as he can remember and he will only ever love her.

"Love you too," he tells her and she smiles and moves off his lap, fixing her dress.

Peeta has just tucked himself back into his boxers when the front door swings open and Haymitch strolls in. He freezes at the sight of them on the couch, their flushed faces and messy hair and clothes askew and untucked.

He clears his throat loudly and looks away uncomfortably. "I uh...guess that's my fault. If you two are going to be like bunnies I'll make sure to knock from now on," he grumbles.

Peeta feels himself blush and discreetly tries to zip up his pants.

Katniss, however, simply smoothes the skirt of her dress down and gets up and heads into the kitchen. "We don't know what you're talking about, Haymitch, but yes, we would appreciate it if you would knock from now on."

Haymitch guffaws as she walks away into the kitchen. "Whatever you say, sweetheart."

Then he turns his attention to Peeta, who stands up from the couch and tries not to look guilty. "I would tell you to keep it in your pants, but I guess this is your house now and you can do whatever the hell you please," Haymitch says dryly.

"Just knock from now on, please," Peeta admonishes him.

They sit down for dinner like normal and Peeta is impressed by Katniss' ability to pretend like nothing ever happened. He thought she would be horrified at the idea of Haymitch walking in on them and knowing what they were doing. He thought it would take her a while not to feel shy or embarrassed about what they do when they're alone. If anything though, she has become comfortable with it all rather quickly and he's glad; he loves how openly she's embraced their love making, how passionate she is about giving and getting pleasure.

She and Haymitch carry on a normal conversation throughout dinner and he likes just listening to them talk. He watches them contently, feeling relaxed to have the two people he cares most about in this world around him over a meal.

With a sudden tightening in his chest he realizes that they really are the only people he has left. Katniss especially is all the family he has now, and while the memories of his father and his brothers and sometimes even his mother hurt to think about, he's forever grateful she is by his side.

He reaches out to grab her hand on the table, joining their hands together. She stops mid-sentence and looks over at him with a surprised smile.

And he doesn't care about the teasing he knows he'll get from Haymitch when he lifts her hand to his mouth and kisses the back of her palm.

It's worth it when he sees the look in her eyes.

* * *

He closes the bakery early.

He loves days like these—days where she foregoes her trip to the woods and helps him run things here instead. He loves being around her, the quiet comfortableness with which they work together, the beauty and ease of the routine they have fallen into.

He catches her eating a cheese bun, thinking she's been sneaky about it.

He laughs at the surprised expression on her face when he comes to stand beside her, her mouth full.

She follows him as he takes her hand and leads her to the back room. He closes the door behind them and locks it. She swallows her mouthful of cheese bun and raises her eyebrows at him playfully.

He doesn't say anything.

He just walks over to her and kisses her. He tastes the garlic and butter and cheese on her lips. He cups her face with one hand and uses his other arm to pull her closer.

She moans against his mouth and he can feel the familiar tightening in his groin.

Their kisses increase in intensity and he pushes his hips against her, making sure she knows how much he wants her, how hard he's getting for her.

"Here?" she asks breathlessly when they break away for a moment.

"Why not?" he challenges her with a playful smirk.

He sees the hesitation in her eyes, the uncertainty about doing something so private and special in a place that is not their home. But he also sees her excitement, the desire to make love to him.

"Come here," he tells her, pulling her by the hand over to his desk. He lifts her up by her hips so she's sitting on the edge of his desk and starts to kiss her again. He lets his hand drift down between her legs where he starts to stroke her over the fabric of her pants.

She mewls her appreciation and starts rocking her hips in response.

With fumbling hands they manage to get both of their pants down to their ankles. But that's as far as they get because they're too impatient to wait any longer.

He pushes inside her and she falls back against the surface of his desk. Her legs wrap around his waist as he starts a steady and firm rhythm. He watches in fascination as her face scrunches up with pleasure, her mouth hanging open in ecstasy.

She chants his name and it does something to him. The feel of her hot, wet tightness around him makes him feel almost delirious. He can't tear his eyes away from the vision of her sprawled out before him, all his.

"Fuck, Katniss," he grunts, gripping onto her hips a little harder.

He starts pounding her with rough, deliberate strokes. He pulls back almost all the way before thrusting into her to the hilt, jolting her whole body forward.

She cries out in response and her reaction only spurs him on.

He feels something suddenly that he can't control, something that is vaguely familiar and unexpected and a little scary. He feels the urge to go harder and faster and get rougher with her. He wants to pull her hair and go hard enough that she has a hard time walking tomorrow.

It feels almost like the sudden urges of anger he used to get when his episodes were at their very worst.

Except with this, he is still fully aware of who he is and is in total control of his actions.

He feels her tightening around him as he keeps up his furious assault. He can't stop now if he tried; he sees that she's on the brink of exploding and he wants to push her over the edge.

With a few more quick, frantic movements of his hips she comes, crying out louder than he's ever heard before. He follows her soon after, rocking his hips with his spurts as he fills her up.

He's lost to the pure bliss for a while as they come down from their high together.

But the first words out of her mouth instantly make him feel guilty and ashamed. "I think I'm going to have bruises tomorrow," she laughs lightly.

He pulls out of her and looks away in shame. "I...I'm sorry, I didn't mean to..." He takes a deep shuddering breath and then continues, "I don't know what came over me."

She grabs him by the arm, forcing him to look at her. "Peeta..." she says, her voice forceful. "I wasn't complaining," she explains earnestly.

They share a silent look and without saying anything they quietly pull their clothes back together and then move to sit beside each other on the couch across the room. Peeta puts an arm around her shoulders as she sits beside him and runs a hand across his face.

"It's just...the idea of hurting you..." he trails off, letting that statement hang heavily in the air. They both know why him hurting her in any way, shape, or form, is a sensitive topic and a hard subject for him to even bring up.

"You didn't though," she assures him, cupping his strong jaw in his hand and turning his head so he's forced to look at her. She runs her thumb over his stubble and his eyes flutter close, relishing her touch.

"I just..." he swallows and starts again, struggling to get the next words out, "for a second there it almost felt like a flashback, but not really. I mean, I still knew who I was and I didn't have any shiny memories or anything. But I had the same spike of intense aggression I've gotten in the past and I...I wanted to...be rough with you."

"Well," she says at length, "I kinda you know, um, liked that."

His eyes go wide and he turns his head quickly to stare at her. Her cheeks flush and she stares down at her lap. He feels himself getting hard again at just the idea that Katniss would not only be okay with what they just did—because holy hell was it amazing—but that she would actually welcome it.

"I mean I..." she struggles to get the next words out and his heart swells as he realizes she's trying to push herself out of her comfort zone by talking about this, that she's doing this for him. "I liked it because I know how much you love me and that you would never hurt me. I have faith that your flashbacks won't ever be so bad again that you'll actually hurt anyone, much less me. So when you were being rough, it just felt...good. I mean it always feels amazing when we make love, but I don't know. I just wanted you to keep doing it. You made me come really hard."

The words leave her all in one rush and his mouth is hanging open slightly by the time she finishes. His cock is throbbing painfully in his pants now and when he doesn't respond for a minute, she slaps him playfully on the arm and blushes. "Well, say something!" She laughs.

"I can't form words right now," Peeta says dumbly, still in a state of glee that she just expressed all that to him. He grins, a wide, dopey smile that threatens to break his face in half.

"Come on," he says suddenly, standing up off the couch quickly. "Let's go home to our bed. I think we have some new things to try," he says cheekily, offering her his hand.

Her eyes go wide, but she has to bite down on her bottom lip to stop herself from smiling. She takes his hand and follows him as he leads the way out the back door of the bakery, stopping briefly to lock up, and then heads home.

He only has the presence of mind when they get home to shut the windows in their bedroom, not wanting anyone—much less Haymitch—to hear the sounds he plans to have her making tonight.


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N: I told you I would eventually get around to posting Chapter 3 of this story haha. Thanks for sticking with it and I'm sorry it took so long to update. If I had tried to write this sooner it would have been very bad and you guys don't want to read that. This chapter wraps up this little mini-story. The only thing I can say with certainty that is forthcoming writing-wise from me is a one shot for Streetlightlove's Charity thing in Feb (ask her for more details! haha) but you never know! ;) Finally, thank you times a million to my awesome beta/friend/fellow fan girl Court81981 for not only getting this back to me so quickly but just overall being a wonderful person who I'm so lucky to know :) Enjoy!**

They're having breakfast one morning when there is a knock at the door.

Katniss looks from Peeta to Haymitch and frowns, wondering who could possibly be coming to see them.

It's Peeta, however, that pushes back from the table quickly and walks over to answer it. Without saying a word, he steps out on the front step to speak with whoever knocked and closes the door behind him, shutting them out from the conversation.

Katniss scowls at the strange behavior and looks over to Haymitch for answers.

He merely shrugs and she can tell he doesn't know anything more than she does.

The front door opens again and Peeta backs up into the house. In a quiet and controlled tone Katniss can just hear him saying, "We'd appreciate it if you would respect our privacy, thank you."

He walks back to their table, sits down, and continues eating like nothing happened.

She gapes at him for a long moment before he finally catches her looking at him.

"What?" he mumbles around a mouthful of bacon and eggs.

"Um can you tell us what that was about?" she says, incredulous that she even has to ask him.

He looks down at his plate and frowns. "Just some guy...they're about to hold elections for District 12...officials that would be in charge here and the ones that would go to the Capitol to represent us." Peeta takes a deep breath and shakes his head, clearly upset about something. "He wanted the 'star-crossed lovers' endorsement, thought it would help his campaign. It's not the first time he's come by."

The news shouldn't come as so much of a shock to her, but it does. It hasn't been the first time people have asked for something from her or Peeta since the war ended, but it's the first time it's come from outside of the people rebuilding the nation in the Capitol. Suddenly the level of comfort and security she's felt in District 12 since her return is thrown into question, and it forms a knot of fear and uncertainty in her chest.

The district's numbers have been growing steadily as the town has rebuilt. With adequate food and supplies being sent in from the Capitol every week and plenty of jobs that need to be filled at the factory that makes medicine, there are more than enough incentives to make District 12 home for the refugees of the war. People from 13—former residents, and displaced citizens from other districts who are looking for a new start—have all slowly filtered in to make 12 their home.

There is no distinction between Town and Seam now. The rebuilt Hall of Justice, representing Panem's new democratic government, was the first thing to be rebuilt and everything has grown from there. Peeta's bakery and Sae's market were the first merchant stores to emerge in the former town square and others soon followed. The homes that began to pop up throughout the rest of the district, with the help of Thom and his crew, were all uniform and standard, neither excessive nor dilapidated.

The only thing that remains from the pre-District 12, besides the—now non-electrified—fence that keeps out wild predators, is Victor's Village.

Katniss feels the knot of anxiety tighten as she thinks about how it must seem to the other residents of District 12 to know their three former victors still occupy the extravagant homes built by the former government that abused and terrorized them for so long. She thinks about her trips into town to trade and visit Sae or the days she spends working at the bakery with Peeta, and wonders if she simply missed the looks of annoyance and anger from her fellow citizens.

Most likely this is the case, considering she walks with her head down and doesn't often make eye contact. She saves her smiles for Peeta, or people she trusts, and is all too aware that her former celebrity status as the Mockingjay, the Girl on Fire, and one half of the star-crossed lovers from District 12, did not disappear completely when the war ended.

An aspiring politician wanting her endorsement for his campaign she can deal with; she has gotten good at saying no to the people who have asked for things from her once the war ended. But the idea of the people from 12 resenting her for continuing to live in what was built as the ultimate symbol of the former Capitol's power is more difficult to swallow because she understands where they're coming from—she would feel the same way if she was in their position.

This district 12 is trying to rebuild and emerge as something new and better than the former one. With the looming mansions that make up Victor's Village and their untouchable inhabitants still a presence in Town, it makes it difficult for the district and its citizens to fully move into the future and leave the past behind.

She swallows thickly as Haymitch breaks her from her train of thought.

"Hmph," he grunts, taking another bite of his breakfast, "he's clearly not too bright since the election rules strictly prohibit any of that propaganda bullshit."

"Don't worry, he won't come back. I was too nice the first time. I made sure he got the point today," Peeta adds.

"Why didn't you tell me the first time he came by?" She asks.

Peeta pauses mid-bite and sheepishly raises his eyes to meet her own. He swallows and looks away. "I...I'm sorry. I should have. I just didn't want to upset you."

She takes a moment to absorb that and pushes back her initial annoyance that he kept something from her and that heseemed to think she couldn't handle this information without becoming distraught. When she considers it further, however, she realizes he was just looking out for her; she realizes that it was something inconsequential in the grand scheme of things.

She reaches across the table and places her hand on top of his, squeezing it and giving him a warm smile.

"It's okay. But I like being in the loop about these kinds of things. I'd rather know than be blindsided later on."

He raises her hand to his lips and kisses the back of it. "I won't keep something like that from you again."

It would be a sweet moment if Haymitch didn't roll his eyes, burp loudly, and push back from the table before declaring he's full.

"Not sure I'm ever going to get used to you two making goo-goo eyes at each other all the damn time," he complains, heading out the door.

* * *

Winter arrives and it is mercifully more tame than usual. The snowstorms come for a two-week period and then melt away, leaving frigid temperatures, but clear skies. When the season approaches its end, so does a date on the calendar that has loomed menacingly, threatening to undo all the progress Katniss has made in the year since.

The anniversary of Prim's death is tomorrow and Katniss feels like all her bad days since it happened are threatening to fuse together and knock her off her feet when it comes a mere 24 hours from now.

She sits on the couch in their living room, and staring into the fireplace blankly, letting her wind wander to that horrible day almost a year ago. She can only vaguely remember moving through the tunnels under the city in the days leading up to it, but the horrible death traps and people they lost down there always make an appearance in her nightmares.

Even the death and destruction—the street opening up and swallowing people whole, innocent civilians being gunned down by the Rebels and Capitol alike—as she made her way to the City Circle where it eventually happened all seem like kind of a blur now, although those horrors feature in her night terrors heavily as well.

Oddly, the only things she can remember with such vivid detail is hugging Peeta in Tigris' shop before they split up, his warmth and comfort giving her the courage to continue with her mission, and her sister's beautiful face as Prim heard her name called out in the midst of the chaos, turning and making eye contact with her, saying her name in that last instant before it all ended.

She can feel it–the grief and depression and sickness—threatening to bubble up and choke her, to swallow her whole and leave her incapacitated. Thankfully, Peeta breaks her from her daze.

"Hey, you okay?" he asks, abandoning the page in the book he had been working on and coming to sit beside her on the couch. He puts an arm around her shoulder and pulls her closer.

She nods dumbly, not trusting herself to speak.

He takes a deep breath and laces his hand with hers. "Katniss...I know what tomorrow is."

She looks over at him, startled, and finds she is at a loss for what to say. Thankfully, Peeta does the talking.

"I love you and I'm going to be here for you," he says gently before leaning in to kiss her softly. She sighs at the familiar taste of his lips, the comforting lull of his voice. A pleasant warm sensation spreads through her that is not lust, but pure love. She feels her mood lift as she remembers that she is not facing this day alone, that she is not the person she was when she lost Prim.

She is in love with Peeta and being with him helps remind her that despite all she's lost there is at least one big reason to keep going.

"It's okay to be sad. It's okay to miss her," he tells her and despite what she was just thinking she feels something split open inside her. She feels the unbearable sadness over losing her sister pour out of her in a rush and because Peeta told her so, she doesn't hide from it. As she breaks down into tears and buries her head against his chest she can feel the grief wrap around her, but it does not feel like a sickness as it has previously. This sadness feels like a relief, like a healthy, cathartic release of all the emotion that has been building up inside her the past year as she struggled to keep it together.

She cries for a very long time.

She cries until her throat is raw and she is so exhausted she falls asleep right there on the couch with Peeta's arms wrapped around her.

* * *

The next morning she wakes from the bright sunshine flooding in through her bedroom window.

She didn't have any nightmares last night.

She stirs and frowns when she doesn't feel Peeta's warm body beside her own.

When she opens her eyes, she sees something on her nightstand that looks so beautiful basking in the morning sun that it immediately puts a smile on her face.

Primroses.

The primroses that Peeta planted on the side of the house. He cut a handful of them that just came in bloom and put them in a vase by her bed, making sure it would be the first thing she saw this morning when she woke.

This morning that marks the one-year anniversary of her sister's death.

Surprisingly she doesn't feel the depression she expects to hit with full force. She feels like she cried herself out last night and if anything, this sweet gesture from Peeta makes her happy to the point that she almost feels strange to feel this way on a day like today.

She is looking at the flowers serenely when the door to their bedroom opens, revealing Peeta carrying a tray with food. He offers her a hesitant smile and approaches the bed.

"I made you breakfast," he says quietly, placing the tray filled with pancakes and bacon and eggs and orange juice at the foot of the bed and coming to sit beside her.

She pulls him into a hug and rests her head on his shoulder, too overwhelmed for a moment to say anything. He rubs her back and kisses the top of her head.

"I love you," she finally manages to choke out, pushing back against the wave of emotion threatening to completely undo her.

She is so, so lucky to have him. She would not be able to get through this day without him.

She's not sure she would have made it to this day if he wasn't here in her life, alive and beautiful and loving her.

They eat in relative silence and like they did so many months ago when he first returned to 12 after the war, the primroses from Peeta give her a spark of life that she can't ignore.

"Let's go to the lake," she insists.

* * *

It takes them longer than usual to get there.

She walks without haste, holding Peeta's hand and simply enjoying the nature around her.

But when they get there she's more tired than she normally would be and as Peeta spreads out the blanket next to the lake's edge, she sits down on top of it and suddenly feels exhausted. He produces the food they brought with them for lunch from a basket and they eat their meal in relative silence, watching the lake's calm water and listening to the mockingjays chirp in the nearby trees.

When they finish eating she feels like the burst of energy the primroses gave her has faded and she doesn't feel like doing anything but staring vacantly out at the water for the rest of the day.

But Peeta has other ideas.

"Come on, let's get in," he says, stripping off his t-shirt and revealing his beautiful bare chest, the sight of which momentarily distracts her from anything other than her urge to run her hands all over him and to cover the exposed skin with kisses like she has done so many times before.

She says nothing in response and Peeta stands up and kicks off his shoes before he starts to unbutton his pants. She watches with rapt attention as his clothes fall to the ground, leaving him completely nude.

She is vaguely aware that she is staring without shame, her mouth hanging slightly open.

"Come on, you haven't given me a swimming lesson since the fall," he adds, turning and walking into the lake's shallow water, giving her a full view of his perfectly sculpted behind.

She swallows thickly, the ache between her legs growing at just the sight of him.

She still hasn't moved though yet and when he gets about chest deep he turns around and splashes the water with his hands. "You want me to drown, Katniss? Get your ass out here!"

She laughs and breaks from her stupor, standing up to kick off her hunting boots and then stripping off her shirt and pants. She hesitates before taking off her bra and underwear despite the fact she's swam in this lake naked plenty of times before and she knows there's not another soul around for miles.

She looks out at Peeta wading around in the lake and he catches sight of her in just her undergarments and pauses, focusing on her intently. She has to bite her lip to contain her smile, and slowly, and very deliberately, she reaches around to unclasp her bra, letting it fall to the ground to join their piles of clothes. And then, without looking out at him, she hooks her thumbs in the waistband of her panties and pulls them all the way down her legs.

Fully nude, she takes a few steps towards the lake, standing ankle deep in the water before she looks back out at Peeta.

His face, which looks like he had been studying her closely, breaks out into a huge grin.

"Get out here," he says, not asking but demanding this time.

She smiles as she walks deeper into the water, the chilly temperature puckering her nipples and causing goose bumps to form on her skin. When she's a few feet away from him, Peeta lunges at her and pulls her into his arms.

She attempts a few feeble protests, but his hands wrap around her waist and her own snake around his neck. They are naked and pressed up against each other and suddenly kissing so intensely she feels dizzy from the warmth swirling in her chest and growing between her legs. He sucks on her bottom lip and eagerly probes her mouth with his tongue, tasting every inch of her. His hands tighten their grip like he's trying to pull her closer and even closer still.

"I thought you wanted a swimming lesson," she finally gasps out when they break away for air.

"How am I supposed to focus on anything when you're naked?" he shoots back.

She laughs and kisses him one more time before pulling away as he mumbles a feeble protest.

"Come on," she encourages him, moving deeper into the water. "We got to work on your treading water ability before we move on to the different strokes."

They spend the next couple of hours in the water and by late afternoon Peeta is learning the backstroke. They make games out of holding their breath underwater and diving down to the bottom of the lake and racing back towards the shallow end. The weather has been pleasantly mild, and they've been in the water so long both their hands are wrinkled.

They drift closer and closer to the shore and find their footing in the shallow end. The water only comes up to their chests now and when Peeta pulls her against him her legs automatically wrap around his waist.

She kisses him as his hands run up and down her back, the touch of their skin creating a pleasant warmth despite the frigid water. When she pulls back to look at him, he pushes her hair away from her face and she closes her eyes. She takes a deep breath and rests her forehead against his.

"Let's go home," he whispers and she nods her head in agreement as they make their way back to their blanket on the shore.

After they've dried off and redressed, they sit down to finish the rest of the food they brought before their long walk back. Peeta starts building a little town out the remaining crackers and berries, making up a ridiculous story that has Katniss laughing so hard her cheeks start to hurt. But as sudden as her laughing fit begins however she chokes up as a completely different emotion overwhelms her.

Because suddenly she's not sure how to reconcile the fact that she's had fun today when it's the anniversary of her little sister's death. She's been genuinely happy and for all intents and purposes she has a good life. She has Peeta. She's still alive and experiencing all this and her sister is gone, forever thirteen-and-a-half years old and innocent.

She breaks down in tears and Peeta immediately pulls her into his arms, not asking what's wrong. She cries for a long time, just like she did the night before and when she has finally calmed down enough Peeta asks her if she feels up for the walk home. She doesn't, but she knows they'll have to go back eventually.

So they pack up and make the trek back to District 12 hand in hand, getting back home right at sunset.

Peeta makes them dinner as she collapses on the couch in their living room and stares off into space vacantly. She feels bad when she sees the worried look in his eye, but she is still trying to work through what she's feeling at the moment.

When he calls her over to the table to eat she feels calmer than she has in a long time. Throughout the meal, she starts getting nervous flutters in her stomach as she thinks about what she's going to do. She thinks about what her sister would say if she were here, how happy she'd be, and smiles.

"Feeling better?" Peeta asks as they are finishing up. He looks hopeful, like he must have caught sight of her smile and figured she wouldn't break down in tears again any time soon.

She nods her head in response, not trusting herself to speak.

He clears their plates for them and then she takes his hand and leads him into the living room.

She asks him to start a fire.

He does so without hesitation and as she watches the flames grow and spread, her heart starts to beat a little faster.

Then she asks him to get the bread.

His eyebrows furrow in response, no doubt confused over why she'd want that when they just ate, so she elaborates.

"For our toasting," she says and then watches the mix of emotions play out on his lovely face.

He opens his mouth to say something, but he hesitates and she sees the doubt on his face. For a terrifying second she's afraid that he's trying to think of how to best let her down easy and tell her he doesn't want to marry her.

But he scoots closer to her and takes her hand between both of his. "Katniss, are you sure?" he asks. "Today has been kind of rough..."

He trails off and she forces herself not to doubt this decision, to realize the only reason he hasn't sprinted to the kitchen for the bread and broken down in tears of joy is because he knows she has been all over the place emotionally today.

She takes a calming breath and tries her best to explain to him how and why she's come to this decision.

"That's the thing Peeta," she begins, "I don't want today to forever be about the end of Prim's life. I want it to signify the beginning of ours."

He bites his lip and looks away and she realizes that didn't come across as well as she wanted it to.

"I mean..." she exhales and shakes her head in frustration, "I mean I don't just want to marry you so this day doesn't haunt me every year. I want to marry you because I love you and you reminded me today that I still have a life to live even though she's not here anymore. I know she'd want me to be happy, but I know it's okay to be sad and to miss her too."

She laces their fingers together and lifts her head to meet his eyes. They are as blue and beautiful as ever and she sees the warmth and love there. Looking into his eyes, she's able to get the next words out without getting too tongue-tied.

"I could live without you, I could get by and go through the day to day motions, but it'd be a life half-lived and I don't want that. I need you to survive what we've endured. I need you to know it's not all pain and loss. For the longest time I was so afraid of this kind of love, terrified that it would only lead to heartache. But I know now that I love you and I am better because of it; I am able to keep going despite what happened because I have you."

She only briefly registers him grabbing her face and kissing her quickly before he's scrambling into the kitchen. She laughs as he returns with a loaf of bread—good, hearty bread with raisins and nuts, the bread he threw to her in the rain so long ago that forever bonded them—and watches as he sits down beside her again.

She takes it from him and puts it aside. Then she takes both his hands in her own and gets him to look at her.

"Wait, we got to do this right," she explains. "I want it to be real."

He looks at her in confusion for a moment before she speaks, "Peeta, will you marry me?"

He breaks out in a dazzling smile and her heart lifts and her stomach swirls with nervous excitement.

"Absolutely," he tells her before joining their lips in a kiss.

They toast the bread and feed it to each other and when she sees the silent tears of happiness fall down Peeta's face she knows this is the best decision she has ever made. She feels her own smile threatening to split her face in two and her heart is so, so full.

When he lowers her onto the floor in front of the fireplace and slowly removes her clothes, she squirms in anticipation of making love to him for the first time as his wife. He hovers over her and she lets her hands trail along his bare chest and shoulders, trying to push his pants and underwear down to his ankles using her feet.

After he removes them he kisses her thoroughly, letting his tongue stroke and caress every inch of her mouth, sucking her lip between his and biting down on it softly. When his lips move down her throat and across her collarbone, she wraps her legs eagerly around his waist.

She can't remember ever being this wet or needy, this desperate to be filled. She wants him to sink into her and stay there forever. She wants to make love as man and wife.

His mouth latches onto her nipple as his hand comes up to fondle her other breast. She keens and arches her back, encouraging his actions. He bites and sucks and flicks the puckered flesh with his tongue until she is circling her hips, searching for his touch.

She reaches down and grips his cock in her hand, pumping him up and down as she feels him grow harder.

"Peeta, please..." she begs and he doesn't need any further encouragement.

He pushes inside her and they groan in unison, her nails sinking into his back. She bites her lip at the perfect sensation of being stretched and filled by her husband, and lets her knees fall down to the side.

He holds his weight up with his strong arms and starts rhythmically pounding into her, hard and deep thrusts that make her whole body move a bit and cause her breasts to bounce up and down.

She closes her eyes and lets her hands wander down to his behind, squeezing it and using it to try and pull him into her even deeper. Her head thrashes from side to side as his pace starts to pick up and the pleasure starts to build and build.

His hand drops down to find her clit and with a few quick, hard strokes she shatters beneath him, crying out as the ecstasy consumes her.

He thrusts into her at a frantic pace until he too comes undone, filling her up as he moans his satisfaction. He collapses against her, pushing the air from her lungs but she just holds him against her, not wanting to let him go yet.

They fall asleep in front of the fireplace and when she wakes in the morning he's the first thing she sees.

And she smiles because she knows it'll be like that for the rest of her life.

* * *

When they walk hand in hand to the Hall of Justice the next week to apply for a marriage license it's none other than Delly Cartwright who greets them. She now works as the full time registrar for District 12.

She can barely contain her squeals of delight when they tell her why they're there.

"When are you going to do the toasting?" she asks excitedly, showing them where to sign.

They share a look and a secret smile.

"We kind of already did," Peeta begins and Delly's face falls, clearly thinking she wasn't invited.

"It was just the two of us," Katniss tells her and then elaborates when she sees Delly's look of confusion. "It was kind of spur of the moment."

Peeta just grins and grabs her hand, lacing their fingers together.

"Oh, well aren't you guys going to have a ceremony for friends and family?" Delly questions as she stamps some paperwork.

Katniss shrugs. "I think we're happy with the way we did it. We don't need a big party."

Delly shoots them a genuine smile as she hands them their marriage license. Despite her disappointment that there won't be a big event to celebrate the occasion, she sounds very sincere when she tells them how happy she is for both of them.

As they walk out of the building together and towards their next stop, Peeta pulls her to the side to talk.

"So are you absolutely sure about this?

She nods her head eagerly. She is positive. There is nothing that even makes her doubt this decision. She hesitates for a moment though and wonders if maybe Peeta is the one having second thoughts.

"Are you sure? I don't want to feel like I'm forcing you into this. You have to be sure about this too."

He puts his arm around her shoulder in response and starts walking again in the direction of Thom's home.

"I think it's a great idea. Kinda mad I didn't think of it first," he replies, and she laughs and leans into him.

When they get to Thom's house, Katniss explains their proposal in one long breath.

He simply stares back at them in silence for a moment before speaking.

"You want to tear down Victor's Village?"

She nods in response.

His mouth hangs open as he searches for something to say.

"Katniss and I talked about it," Peeta explains, "we think it would the best thing for not only us, but the entire district."

"And Haymitch?" Thom asks.

"He agrees with us," she replies and tries not to laugh and the look of doubt and disbelief on Thom's face. She can't really blame him; it took some convincing for their former mentor to go along with this plan.

"Well, if that's what you guys want I guess that's your call to make. I'll get my guys to start working on tearing down the ten houses not in use right now while I draw up some blueprints for your new homes."

"Umm actually," Peeta interrupts. "I sketched a few designs out the other day for what we had in mind. We figured we could use that land right on the old border of where the Seam and Town used to meet. I can come by tomorrow and go over it with you."

"Oh, even better," Thom says. "And Haymitch? Does he just want the same thing you guys are getting?'

"Uh no," Katniss speaks up. "He wants something smaller. Just a one bedroom with an area outside for his geese. Peeta will explain in more detail."

Thom chuckles and rubs his jaw. "Alright, whatever you kids say."

They shake hands and thank him before heading back home.

Or what they'll only be able to call home for a little while longer.

* * *

_6 months later..._

She kisses Peeta goodbye after a day of working together at the bakery and heads home to prepare dinner for them. She takes the short walk to their new home and notices the streets are more crowded than she can ever remember them.

More than that, she notices that nearly everyone she sees looks right at her and smiles. They don't avoid eye contact or steer clear of her like they used to when she was still the Mockingjay that lived in Victor's Village. She smiles back at them and feels a sense of calm wash over her.

It happens when she walks in her front door and drops her things on the floor. As she walks towards the kitchen, trying to decide what to make for dinner, she realizes that the loss and tragedy of her past feels almost like a distant memory now.

It hasn't been that long since the war ended in the grand scheme of things, but she can tell that it has slowly started to fade, a scab that has grown over a wound only to leave a scar. It's not that it doesn't hurt anymore to think about all that she has lost, and she knows her nightmares and days of crushing sadness will never truly go away for good, but it no longer feels so close to her; it doesn't overwhelm and consume her.

Her life has evolved into more than just what she's been through. She is a wife now; she is a mostly happy citizen of the new democratic nation of Panem. She doesn't spend her days in fear and while it's taken some getting used to, she feels comfortable with the town and the people around her—even the new government that has emerged.

She is washing some vegetables over the sink and glancing out the window when she spots Peeta coming up the road, a paper bag filled with freshly baked bread in his arms. He goes right past their house and down the dirt trail that separates their home from Haymitch's new residence. He walks the 30 yards or so and greets their former mentor, who is sitting on his porch sipping a bottle of some alcohol and watching his geese meander through the yard.

He sits down beside him and offers him two fresh loaves from the bag. They talk for a while and Katniss studies them carefully, wondering what they're discussing and wishing she could eavesdrop on the conversation. Both men just stare out at the geese, comfortable in each other's presence.

Finally, Peeta stands up and Haymitch joins him. He slaps Peeta on the back, taking a big swig from his bottle and laughing heartily. Peeta blushes beet red and stares down at the ground, scratching the back of his neck.

She resists the urge to roll her eyes, knowing she can only guess at what Haymitch might have said to get that sort of reaction from Peeta.

She is just putting the cover over the pot of stew to let it simmer when Peeta finally walks in the door. He puts the bag of bread down and without a word pulls Katniss into his arms and kisses her.

She pulls away breathless and can't help her giddy little smile. Getting married has not lessened the effect Peeta has over her; if anything it's only made it more intense.

"Hello to you too," she laughs.

"Can dinner wait? I'm really hungry for something else right now."

She bites her lip and nods eagerly. She knows what he means about a different kind of hunger.

* * *

They've become very good at this, she thinks as her husband takes her nipple in his mouth and sucks. He fondles her other breast as she throws her head back in pleasure.

He knows her body so well. He has become a master at making her writhe with need, her whole being thrumming with anticipation. When he does finally put his mouth between her legs or bury himself inside her, she usually cries out in sweet relief, already wound up and desperate for release.

Now he lets his hand trail down to her clit, which he rubs firmly for a moment before trailing down to trace her folds, feeling how wet and ready she is for him.

"Fuck Katniss," he curses and she pushes her hips towards him. She loves hearing him cuss. It always means he is heady with lust. He pushes two fingers inside her and curls them just right.

She moves her lips up his neck until she can bite down on his ear lobe.

"Are you going to fuck me or what?"

He pulls back and she can see his nostrils flare and his eyes darken with lust. She isn't as good talking about sex as Peeta is, but whenever she does say anything she can always see the immediate effect it has on Peeta. It's usually her clue to him that she wants him to fuck her so hard that she will have trouble walking the next day.

He sits back on his haunches and before she can protest he is pushing her onto her stomach and pulling her ass up so she's on her hands and knees in front of him.

The wetness seeps down her thighs when she thinks about what he's going to do her, what he always does to her when he gets in one of his moods.

He pushes into her from behind and he is so big and he goes so deep it's all she can do to keep herself propped up on her hands. He is relentless, slamming into her hard and fast as the pleasure makes her nearly delirious.

He pulls on her braid roughly so she has to arch her back, and it changes the angle of his penetration. She keens and reaches down to rub her clit.

He slaps her ass with an open palm and just the perfect amount of pressure that it only just stings, but mostly sends a jolt of pleasure through her and makes her cry out.

"That's my job," he grunts into her ear, releasing her braid and moving his hand down to find her clit as he keeps thrusting into her.

"Oh god, Peeta!" She wails, falling down on the bed, unable to support her own weight any longer. If anything he keeps pounding into her harder and when he slaps her ass again, she tightens around him and explodes, her body shattering in ecstasy.

He pauses for a moment and she is so dazed by her orgasm that she turns over and falls on her back with his help. He leans down to kiss her gently and settles himself between her legs. He takes himself in his hand and pushes inside her again.

She makes a noise of contentment and wraps her legs around his waist, dragging her hands through his sweat-dampened hair.

She mewls her approval as he sets a less hectic pace. Before she knows it she feels her own climax building again and in sensing this, Peeta reaches down to rub her clit firmly.

When she comes he follows and fills her up, rocking his hips sporadically as he finishes.

He collapses against her and rolls on his back as she curls into his side. They come back down to earth, breathing hard and holding onto one another.

She finally understood what Peeta meant when he said he wanted to freeze a moment and live in it forever when they started making love. If she could pick a moment to live in forever it would be this, when they're naked and sweaty and clinging to each other in the afterglow of what they've just done. When all that exists in the world is her and Peeta and the love between them. This is her perfect moment. Always.

Peeta's stomach growls in the silence of the room causing them both to laugh.

"I guess I was more hungry than I thought," he admits.

She runs her hand over his bare chest and sighs contently. "Is Haymitch coming for dinner?"

"Umm no, he said he had a big lunch down at Sae's Cafe."

In the suddenly awkward silence that follows Katniss lifts her head and turns to look at him. She studies him carefully and props her chin on his chest.

"Alright, so tell me what he said."

He furrows his eyebrows at her in confusion. "What are you talking about?"

"Haymitch. I saw you walk down to his place to drop off some bread before you came home," she explains. "He looked like he was ribbing you about something right before you left."

He looks away briefly and runs his hand up and down the smooth skin of her back. "Oh you know Haymitch, always taking pleasure in teasing me about something," he says evasively.

Normally she would just let this go. It's not like it really bothers her that Haymitch enjoys making them both uncomfortable and giving them a hard time. She's used to it by now. But something about the way Peeta has gone stiff and won't quite meet her eyes makes her persist.

She reaches out and cups his jaw, forcing him to look at her. "Peeta. What did he say?"

He sighs and covers her hand with his own. "I just didn't want to freak you out. He didn't mean anything by it. He was just joking that he loves his new place so much, that it's so much more cozier than the old mansion and there's still space for his geese."

"Okay?" she says, knowing there is still more he's not revealing.

"And just that when it comes time for him to babysit there's even a yard to play in."

Her heart jumps in her chest and she takes a moment to process how this really makes her feel. She has a suspicion that if they weren't having this conversation in the afterglow of their mind-blowing session of sex she might react completely differently.

But surprisingly she is relatively calm about this topic given how she has always felt about it.

She chooses her words carefully. "Well, if we ever need him for that, it won't be for several years from now."

The effect her words have on him is almost immediate. He swallows thickly and his eyes widen almost comically.

"Are you...do you...?" He struggles to get the words out.

"I don't know," she tells him honestly. "I can't really give you an answer. I'm not saying 'yes' and I'm not saying 'no.' I just know that it will be awhile before I can even consider it."

He nods as he processes this information. "Okay, alright. That's fine with me. I'm in no rush either."

They simply stare at each other for a moment as something passes between them, the unspoken possibility that maybe, eventually, one day they could go down that road together. She curls back into his side and feels his nervous energy pulse through her. She doesn't regret being honest with him about it; she knows that this topic would have come up sooner rather than later.

At the moment she knows that she still has a long path ahead of her until she is really okay again and can even contemplate the idea of bringing another life into this world. The thought of it still terrifies her. The old fears about bringing an innocent baby into an unstable and dangerous world haven't completely vanished with the end of The Hunger Games.

But she cannot deny that she is a different person than she was at sixteen, she is different even than the damaged and battered girl who emerged from the war without a sister. When she accepted how much she loved Peeta, when they started to make love and she became his wife and promised herself to him for forever, she knew that her views on having children would evolve one day.

She remembers that night in the arena when she and Peeta kissed with such passion it made her whole body ache for more, how she fell asleep thinking about Peeta's children and a world where they could be safe. She is not ready yet; she knows that. But underneath her fear and uncertainty, there is that hope and joy that being with Peeta instills in her, there is that quiet excitement over the idea that she could be the one to give Peeta those children, that she could create something beautiful and precious and give him a family.

Peeta has such a good, kind heart and so much love to give. She feels selfish being the only one who gets to experience it. A child would be so lucky to have Peeta as a parent, to have that unconditional love in his or her life.

She reaches out and laces their fingers together.

In response he brings her hand up to his lips and kisses the back of it.

"I love you, you know," Peeta says softly. "No matter what you decide. You'll always be enough for me."

She swallows back the lump in her throat and nods, blinking back tears.

Looking back one day she'll realize this was when she knew.

She will give Peeta children some day. She will push aside her own fears and worries just to see the look of joy and love on his face when he looks at their child for the first time.

That's what his love does for her.

He makes her feel like together they can do anything.


End file.
